Wrigley Field rooftop businesses want to negotiate a new deal with the Cubs, but the team’s owners don’t appear to be interested (Phil Velasquez, Chicago Tribune)

Don't think of the Ricketts family only as owners of the Chicago Cubs. With its purchase of the team and Wrigley Field in 2009, it became one of the most prominent real estate holders in Chicago.

The family's real estate ambitions now color negotiations over its plan to spend $300 million to renovate the 99-year-old ballpark. The family purchased a lot across the street from Wrigley and have announced plans to build a hotel on the site if the ballpark can get its makeover. Earlier, the family bought a stake in one of the rooftop businesses overlooking the stadium.

Newly obtained documents by the Tribune indicate that soon after buying the team in a deal valued at $845 million the Rickettses set their sights on getting a bigger piece of Wrigleyville. Two years ago, the family offered to buy a 50 percent interest in five properties, four of which house rooftop businesses. Their offer included gaining the right to erect a video scoreboard on the fifth rooftop.

That deal didn't happen, but its specter hovers over the current standoff between the rooftop owners and the family. The central issue: The Rickettses want relief from onerous city zoning restrictions to give them the freedom to erect more advertising around the stadium.

The Ricketts family is frustrated because it owns a business that needs investment but is being thwarted in its efforts to finance improvements to a ballpark that is also a beloved but crumbling Chicago icon. While all sides, including Mayor Rahm Emanuel, want a deal, the family hasn't been able to get what it wants in part because ringing the stadium with signs could block the bird's-eye views from the rooftops, thus threatening the livelihoods of some of its neighbors.

The rooftop owners are perplexed, arguing that they are willing to negotiate a new deal with the family that would preserve their sightlines, but they think they are being treated as interlopers, not the long-term partners they have been since before the Rickettses arrived on the scene. There are 11 years to go on a 20-year contract that gives the Cubs a share of revenue generated by fans paying to watch Cubs games from the rooftops.

A key component to any agreement is relaxing Wrigley's designation as a Chicago landmark to permit signs. Rooftop owners say easing the landmark restrictions to permit signs atop the bleachers would violate their contract and have proposed an alternative: The Cubs could put signs on their buildings and keep the revenue, estimated at $10 million to $20 million a year.

The Cubs haven't expressed interest in that deal, however, heightening concerns among the rooftop owners that the Ricketts family may have other plans.

If ballpark signs obstruct their views and drive the rooftops out of business, several of the property owners, who have taken out loans in recent years to renovate their buildings, worry that they might not be able to afford their mortgage payments.

They've expressed concern that the Ricketts family would be positioned to buy their distressed properties, move some of the outfield signs and reopen the rooftop businesses.

The sentiment was first voiced in January by George Loukas, who owns three rooftops, when the rooftop owners held a news conference about their concerns. When asked if he thinks the team is trying to diminish the value of the rooftop properties so it could eventually acquire them, Loukas said, "Absolutely, absolutely."

The feeling has grown in the past two months as the Cubs and city officials have been unable to reach an agreement that preserves views from the rooftops while also providing more revenue for the team.

"Based on everything I've seen from the Ricketts family during this recent process, they are not interested in a true partnership," Loukas said in a statement Friday. "In fact, it appears they would like to put the rooftops out of business. ... It's disheartening this is the direction it's going."

The laments of the rooftop owners were dismissed by a Ricketts family spokesman as "conspiracy theories."

"(Cubs Chairman) Tom Ricketts has been very clear as to what he is attempting to do," spokesman Dennis Culloton said. "He is trying to breathe life into his family's plan to save Wrigley Field and in so doing create the resources to also invest in the neighborhood. All of those resources from saving Wrigley to developing collateral parcels they've obtained will go to building a championship organization."

The quarrel over the future of Wrigley Field has overshadowed the hope and anticipation of a new baseball season about a week away.

It's not what the Ricketts family foresaw two months ago when it made an unexpected decision. For more than two years, the family had been seeking tax dollars to help pay for an overhaul of the ballpark. When hopes dimmed of securing government help, the family changed tactics and in January announced its intentions to fund stadium improvements on its own — with one significant caveat.